Mother Amaterasu
by atlantiandragoness
Summary: There's one thing Amaterasu knows for sure and its this: She has way too many kids.


**This is what pops into my head everytime one of the brush gods says 'mother' to Amaterasu.**

**Btw, she can talk in this fic... **

------

Amaterasu's ear flicked as she began to wake from her nap. The wolf let out a yawn that showed off a great number of her fangs and looked around. Something wasn't right. For one thing, it was quiet, which was an automatic sign of trouble. Secondly, it was oddly dark for noon. The wolf goddess looked up and noticed that was sun was being obstructed by several thick clouds, casting the land in shadows.

_Not for long_, she thought and swung her tail around in a circle. A bright sun appeared in front of the clouds, spreading light once again.

"Much better," she commented, feeling the rays heat her fur as the area quickly got brighter, as if someone had suddenly flicked on a light switch in the Celestial Plain.

A squeak sounded from the tree she'd just been sleeping under and Amaterasu only had a chance to glance upwards before a small white monkey decorated with red symbols came plummeting to the ground.

"Hi Mom," he said, wincing as a cymbal crashed nosily beside him. "Who turned on the lights?" He winced again when its mate landed squarely on his head, as if punishing him for the bad joke.

She gave him a blank stare.

"What? You said I couldn't practice my cymbals in the house anymore, so I went to practice in the tree...only I fell asleep halfway," he told her.

The two stood in an awkward silence for a moment. "Well, I'll just leave you alone. Bye!" the monkey said hurriedly, summoning a vine to launch him back into the tree.

Amaterasu snorted. _Tsutagami,_ she thought to herself and made a mental note to deal with him later. She looked around some more, still wondering why it was so quiet. Her ear twitched as it picked up the sound of something falling, and she headed off to the house to find the source.

The door creaked open as the goddess made her entrance into the room and immediately five white blurs dashed out of sight. The wolf let a sigh escape. Fourteen kids was just _too_ many, even for a goddess (The number should've been twelve, but the child that would've been dubbed Hanagami ended up being triplets).

Amaterasu continued in the direction in which the come had come, finding a jar rolling around on the floor as if it had been possessed, a sloshing noise present with each movement. She leaned down and closed her jaws around a cork that kept the contents of the bottle confined, jerking it out in a quick, fluid movement. A white snake launched out from inside the jar, her ivory scales dripping with water.

"Sakigami I ought to-!" the serpent began, but cut herself off short once she noticed the wolf standing over her. "Um..."

"Nuregami, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Sakigami stuck me in that jar and then put a cork in the entrance."

"Why?"

"Becuase he thought it'd be funny or something, I don't know." Amaterasu raised a red-colored eyebrow. "Okay, so I was messing with his sho **(1)**, but it was getting on my nerves."

The white wolf sighed and nudged at her with her nose, urging the small snake to go play with her siblings. Nuregami happily obliged, quickly slithering away. Amaterasu waited until she left before grabbing the jar in her jaws and going into the kitchen to return it to its proper place.

Once again as she made herself present in the room, several other beings made themselves absent. All except one.

The white lamb had not noticed Amaterasu enter the room, no, he was too busy trying to obtain a bottle on the counter. The sun goddess could've sworn that she'd written 'Don't Touch' in the neatest, most legible calligraphy she could manage, and in bright red to top it off. Maybe the lamb just couldn't read warnings.

"Kasugami!" she barked, causing the sheep to wobble on his makeshift stool, consisting of various household items precariously stacked on top of one another. The room was suddenly flooded with mist, forcing the tumbling tower to slow long enough for him to jump to safety (but not without grabbing the bottle first) before the whole thing came tumbling down. Kasugami was feeling rather proud of his accomplishment until he realized that the one who had nearly foiled his plans was none other than his mom.

"I'm busted."

"Kasugami, how many times have I told you to stay away from the sake?"

"Four..." he questioned until she gave his a punishing stare "...hundred?" he tacked on at the end.

The wolf exhaled through her nostrils and continued to stare at Kasugami until he decided to put down the sake and excuse himself to his room to mull over his actions. She smiled, pleased with her parenting, and moved the fermented solution to a higher locale, placing it behind the closed doors of a pantry, just in case. She made a quick survey of the room and decided to move onto the next one.

The den was the usual place where the family tended to gather, and exactly where Amaterasu found the majority of her children. Nuregami was wound up in a tight coil, hissing dangerously at a white monkey she'd backed up into a corner, the afore-mentioned sho on the ground nearby. Also nearby was another monkey, this one holding a flute, who was laughing at the misfortune of his triplet.

A small chair hosted a baby phoenix who was perched on the back of it, fast asleep. A fake pipe was clamped in his beak, emitting a bubble of fire each time he exhaled. A colt sat beside him, blowing out each bubble with a small gust of wind. An ox charged past the two of them, failing to wake Moegami, followed by a snarling tiger cub with lightning bolt stripes. The tiger pulled the string of the bow on his back, launching a nearly harmless spark of electricity at the bull. The two were closely followed by a small dragon who looked like he'd tried to pass through a scroll and got stuck.

The ox made a sharp turn, though didn't quite make it. His back hooves caught the wall and left a noticeable hole in it. Yomigami nearly pounced at the gap, bringing his brush-like tail around and sweeping over the hole, which replaced the plaster that had been knocked away. Once the repair was done, the dragon went back to tailing his destructive siblings to fix any more messes they might make. Their chase disturbed a small rat sitting on couch, who quickly whipped out a giant sword and slashed at the two. She missed them, but managed to take out two table legs.

Yomigami fixed those too.

Meanwhile, the entire scene was being watched from above by a white and red kitten. She sat in the middle of the wall, parallel to the ground as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

With and exasperated sigh, Amaterasu decided to call an end to the chaos with a loud bark. The trio running laps around the room suddenly froze as if playing 'Red Light, Green Light'. Moegami was awakened and fell off the back of the chair with a thud and Kabegami lost her footing on the wall, but managed jump to safety first. The entire room snapped to attention and all ten children lined up before her.

Amaterasu counted them, realizing a few were missing. Since Yumigami controlled the moon (much like her mother controlled the sun), the rabbit was going to be asleep until sunset. Kasugami was up in his room and Tsutagami was outside, which meant only one of her children was unaccounted for.

"Has anyone seen-"

BOOM!

"-Bakugami?" she finished.

Smoke wafted into the room as a slightly charred boar hobbled in, his tail on fire.

"Nevermind."

The cat leaned towards him and took a deep whiff. "Mm, bacon," she commented, earning a glare from her brother. Kazegami quickly trotted over, blew his tail out, and went back into place. Amaterasu rolled her eyes and continued with what she'd been doing.

"Gekigami," she called and the tiger stepped forth, a brave, almost challenging look on his face. "What did I say about trying to kill your brother?"

Itegami snickered and the cub growled at him over his shoulder.

"If you're going to kill him, do it outside, not in the house," the wolf finished. The ox's face fell and, with a grin, Gekigami chased him out the door Bakugami had arrived through.

"The same goes for you, Nuregami." The snake, who currently had her coils wrapped around Sakigami, whined, but released the monkey from her grasp.

"As for the rest of you, try not to get in trouble," she said, dismissing them, most of which went back to what they'd been doing in the first place. Amaterasu let her gaze linger a while before moving on, satisfied that they'd behave for the time being. She went into her own room and laid down on the mat. The wolf stretched her tired body and allowed herself to relax. Slowly she succumbed to sleep, her eyelids drifting lower and lower and-

"Mom!"

Amaterasu groaned and forced herself to get up again. As she trudged back into the den she made a decision, not for the first time and _definitely _not the last time:

She had _way_ too many kids.

**-------------**

**(1) a hand-heled organ, aka the instrument Sakigami plays. ^_^" had to look this up because I had NO idea what he was holding**


End file.
